10 Movie Flops That Became Cult Classics

3. The Thing (1982)

Like Big Trouble In Little China and They Live, John Carpenter's remake of the 1951 original was trashed by critics (Vincent Canby called it a foolish, depressing, overproduced movie) and ignored at the box office, yet it still went on to become a cult classic.

Overshadowed by the release of ET: The Extra-Terrestrial 2 weeks earlier, The Thing debuted at #8 and spent three weeks inside the top ten, earning little more than its $15 million production budget. If you watched the picture on network television, however, you saw an edited version shorn of violence, gore and profanity, with added voiceover and a pointless alternate ending that recycled footage from earlier in the movie.

It was enough to send fans scurrying to the rental version, where they saw Rob Bottin's effects in all their uncut glory and immediately resolved to become filmmakers. Famous fans include Robert Rodriguez (who references the movie in Planet Terror) and James Gunn (check out the store owned by 'R.J. MacReady' in Slither).